History Notes this week of Feb 25th

303AD: Roman Emperor Diocletian issues the first official Roman edict calling for the persecution of Christians. The decree gave license to hitherto unknown rampages against the Christian community, many of whom were now in significant positions within Roman society.

1565: Founding of Rio de Janeiro.

1570: Pope Pius V excommunicates Elizabeth I, Queen of England. This served to consolidate her position on the then-still-tenuous Protestant hold on the English crown.

Francis Marion, the Swamp Fox

1732: Birth of South Carolina militia commander and progenitor of the modern concept of irregular warfare, Francis Marion (d.1795). Marion’s nickname, “Swamp Fox,” gives a hint of the persistent threat he created for the British forces who had earlier routed the Continental Army at the Battle of Camden.

1779: Virginia Militia Colonel George Rogers Clark, the elder brother of William, captures Fort Vincennes (Indiana) from the British after a dramatic 180 mile march through the flooded flatlands of Illinois.
1779: Birth of Joel Roberts Poinsett (d.1851), a congressman, physician, botanist, statesman, and the first U.S. Minister to Mexico (prior to our sending an ambassador), where he spent a significant amount of time cataloging the varieties of flora in the southern part of the country. He is best known today for bringing to the United States the red-leafed “Christmas-Eve flower” that now bears his name.

1791: The French Republic, in response to an urgent need to deal with persistent English threats along the coast, builds the first of a tightly interlaced series of semaphore towers, or “optical telegraphs,” to rapidly communicate between the frontiers and the capital in Paris. The towers in France used a series of rotating and articulated arms to create coded characters. Other countries used different types of open and closed panels or different types of arms, but the principle remained the same: the most distant lookout would spot some kind of listed activity offshore and immediately report it to the next tower along the line. The towers themselves made excellent targets for military raids.

1807: Birth of American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

1815: Napoleon Bonaparte effects an escape from his island exile on Elba, not far from the coast of southern France.

1836: Lieutenant Colonel William Barret Travis, whose small Alamo garrison went under siege, dispatches courier Albert Martin with a letter announcing his urgent need for supplies and reinforcements to maintain a strategic American presence in the Texas territory north of the Rio Grande. Martin rode 70 miles to Gonzalez, which served as a rallying point for reinforcements over the next week. Travis’ words electrified the population, setting the stage for the upcoming battle to sear itself into the memories of every Texan.

1836: Samuel Colt is granted a US patent for the Colt revolver.

1845: President John Tyler signs a bill authorizing the annexation of the Republic of Texas. Texas is the only one of the Several States to have a legitimate secession clause in its annexation. Texas is, in fact, the only State that was annexed as a formerly sovereign state, not as a federal territory from which a State would be organized. The decade that surrounded Texas’s eventual integration into the United States remains a source of identity for Texans everywhere.

1854: The Republican Party of the United States is organized in Ripon, Wisconsin. The party coalesced around anti-slavery activism, and held as its motto: “Free labor, free land, and free men,” all of which was oriented on encouraging the growth of small business, including giving away government land, in order to overwhelm slavery with the reality of entrepreneurial success throughout the expanding nation. In 1856, John C. Fremont was it first Presidential nominee. In 1860 it was Abraham Lincoln.

1861: Tsar Alexander I abolishes serfdom in Russia.

1872: Yellowstone National Park is established.

1898: Birth of Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty, Irish priest from Killarney in County Cork, best known as “The Scarlet Pimpernel of the Vatican,” whose work in the diplomatic corps of the papal nuncio during the 1920s and 1930s climaxed in 1943-45 when he spearheaded Vatican resistance to the Nazi occupation of Rome. O’Flaherty sheltered and transferred to safety over 6,500 Allied POWs who escaped from their camps when the Italian government capitulated in September, 1943. His work was explicitly targeted by the head of Rome’s Gestapo, who failed to make a dent in the flow of prisoners sheltered by O’Flaherty’s organization. After the war, O’Flaherty was honored by Great Britain with the Order of British Empire (OBE) and in the United States by the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

1914: Death of Joshua Chamberlain, Colonel of 20th Maine Volunteer Infantry during the War Between the States, hero of Little Round Top at the Battle of Gettysburg, and the officer designated to receive the surrender of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox

1924: Birth of Deke Slayton, one of the original 7 Mercury Astronauts, who had the distinction of being grounded from the flight program for reasons of a suspected heart murmur. He remained in NASA, however, becoming head of the Astronaut Office, which controlled astronaut selection and flight assignments. After completion of the dangerous and dramatic Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions, Slayton was finally released for flight as Docking Module Pilot of the Apollo-Soyouz Test Project, a 1975 earth orbital mission that set the conditions for continued U.S.- Russian cooperation in space

1932: Birth of Johnny Cash
1932: In England, birth of Elizabeth Taylor
1932: Charles Augustus Lindbergh III, infant son of Lucky Lindy and his wife Anne Morrow Lindbergh, is kidnapped from their home in East Amwell, NJ. In mid-May, the boy’s body was discovered not far from the Lindbergh’s home, with death indicated from a massive blow to the head.

1949: A USAF B-50 Superfortress, under the command of Captain James Gallagher, arrives at Carswell AFB in Fort Worth, after completing a 94 hour, non-stop circumnavigation of the globe. The crew performed four aerial refuelings, meeting Air Force tankers over Lajes airfield in the Azores, Dahran Airfield in Saudi Arabia, Clark AFB in the Philippines, and Hickam AFB in Hawaii.

1950: Birth of singer-songwriter and jazz drummer Karen Carpenter.

1953: Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin collapses from a stroke. He dies four days later.

Nuclear test at Bikini Atoll (Photo courtesy GSU archive)

1954: The United States detonates its first deliverable hydrogen bomb, code named “Shrimp,” as part of the CASTLE BRAVO series of nuclear tests at the Bikini atoll. The bomb yielded 15 megatons of energy, twice what was predicted. This was both the most powerful explosion in U.S. nuclear testing, and also the worst radiological disaster, as a snow-like fallout mist irradiated an area of over 7000 square miles downwind of the blast. The Marshall islands were evacuated (too late) and the crew of a Japanese fishing vessel suffered severe radiation burns, to say nothing of offloading their cargo of radioactive fish into the local market.

1993: Inspired by the “blind sheikh” Omar Abdul Raman, Islamic terrorists detonate a massive truck bomb in the parking garage of the World Trade Center’s north tower. Seven people are killed and over a thousand are injured by the attack. After his trial and conviction, his co-conspirators went on to finish the job eight years later.

William F. Buckley with his King Charles spaniel Rowley (courtesy Getty Images)

2008: Death of William F. Buckley, Jr.. The founder of National Review and the godfather of the conservative intellectual movement, he made a brilliant impact on the Ivy League status quo with the publication of his first book, God and Man at Yale in 1951, the same year the young Yale graduate was recruited to the CIA. He worked two years for that organization and only knew the name of one supervisor, E. Howard Hunt. In 1955 Buckley published the first edition of the National Review, noting that its mission was to “…stand athwart History, shouting stop!” In addition to his print journalism, Buckley hosted the nation’s longest-running television program, PBS’ Firing Line. He was an avid sailor (making two crossings of the Atlantic, and one of the Pacific).

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Focusing in on 1732 and the birth of South Carolina militia commander and progenitor of the modern concept of irregular warfare, Francis Marion (d.1795), known as the “Swamp Fox,” was a hero to us up here to the north of you when I was young.

Playing out in the woods, everybody wanted to be like Francis Marion.

But not so “Granny” Gates at the Battle of Camden, who is said to have set a land-speed record for a general fleeing a battle on horseback, a record performance that I don’t think has ever been matched since.

According to an article at the official U.S. Army site entitled “The Battle of Camden, August 16, 1780” by Dr. John R. Maass U. S. Army Center of Military History, dated August 7, 2009, fought on August 16, 1780, the Revolutionary War Battle of Camden, South Carolina, pitted American forces under Major General Horatio Gates against a small British field force commanded by Lieutenant General. Charles, Lord Cornwallis.

Despite numerical superiority, the Patriot forces suffered a humiliating rout, one of the worse defeats in American military history.

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That is said to have been as a result of what is known as poor generalship on the part of “Granny” which resulted in poor troop positioning, with militia faced off against British regulars.

Getting back to the narrative:

After capturing Charleston in May, 1780, British forces established a number of posts in the interior of South Carolina to exert control over the state and to quell rising Patriot militia activity.

One of their main bases was at Camden, an important transportation and communications hub in the center of the state.

Opposing them by late July were several groups of South Carolina partisans, North Carolina militia troops, and a small nucleus of Maryland and Delaware Continentals.

Gates, who three years earlier had stopped another major British invasion at Saratoga, New York, commanded all these Patriot forces.

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And there I have to interject that while “Granny” Gates got the credit for Saratoga, there is a lo9t of debate as to how deserving “Granny” actually was of that credit.

And back to the narrative:

From North Carolina, Gates quickly moved into South Carolina, where he hoped to take up a defensive position north of Camden in order to compel the British to attack him or quit their strong post there.

After a grueling march through a Tory-infested country, Gates brought his tattered troops to Rugeley’s Mills, a dozen miles north of Camden, by August 13.

The American force of about four thousand men included twelve hundred veteran Continentals, augmented by three thousand state troops and inexperienced militia units.

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The size of the body of troops Gates commanded in that battle is larger than the population of some small towns up here where I am, to put things into perspective.

And again, back to the narrative:

On August 15, Gates ordered a night march toward Camden, to begin at ten p.m. that night.

Coincidentally, the British also set out from Camden at ten p.m., directly for Gates’ camp.

Cornwallis sought to attack the Americans on the march, as they approached his position.

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And there is where better generalship took over the momentum of the battle, which is interesting, because “Granny” Gates had himself been a British officer serving in the British Army during the War of the Austrian Succession and the French and Indian War.

Frustrated by his inability to advance in the army, Gates sold his commission and established a small plantation in Virginia.

And once again, back to the narrative:

The armies blundered into each other early on the morning of August16, and after a brief firefight, the two belligerents waited for daylight.

Initially, the British deployed into line with their veteran regiments on their right flank, with cavalry in reserve to exploit success.

Gates, too, arranged his forces and therein made a critical mistake.

The American commander posted the Continentals, his best troops, on the right flank.

On his left, Gates deployed the inexperienced militia, thereby placing them opposite the best troops the British had on the field.

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It is an axiom of battle that poor generalship gets troops killed for no gain, and “Granny” Gates proved that in spades at the Battle of Camden, as we shall see as we resume the narrative:

Cornwallis was quick to take advantage of Gates’ improper arrangements.

After a few volleys, the redcoats advanced with bayonets leveled, which immediately routed the militia, many of whom threw down their arms and fled the field.

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As an aside, the real infantry assault weapon is the bayonet, as the Brits proved at the Battle of Camden – “Give them a taste of some cold steel, boys!”

And resuming the narrative:

While Gates and several of his officers vainly tried to rally the panicked militia, the Continentals fought valiantly on the American right.

Despite initial success, they were eventually overwhelmed after the flight of the militia.

Hundreds of Continentals were captured, while others fled to safety through the surrounding forests and swamps.

Gates managed to regroup the remnants of his command in the coming weeks at Hillsborough, North Carolina, almost two hundred miles away.

Once news of the defeat became known, Congress moved to replace Gates, whose reputation never fully recovered from the debacle in South Carolina.

One general or one battle, however, does not determine the outcome of a campaign or a war.

American forces would rally under a new commanding general, Nathanael Greene.

Within fifteen months they would confine the British to a few coastal enclaves in the Carolinas and Georgia.

Meantime, Cornwallis would march off through North Carolina into Virginia — to another coastal port called Yorktown.

The Journal of the American Revolution gives us another perspective on “Granny” Gates at the Battle of Camden in the April 8, 2014 article “Winner or Runner? Gates at Camden” by Wayne Lynch, where we are informed as follows:

Lord Cornwallis dealt General Horatio Gates a terrible defeat at Camden in South Carolina.

The battle represented a rather rude jolt to the reputation of the American general who had orchestrated the victory at Saratoga a few years earlier; to make matters even worse, rumors of personal cowardice followed the general for the rest of the war.

Not to mention for the next 234 years.

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And since this is now 2018, make that the next 238 years.

Resuming the story:

At Camden, General Gates famously lined up his militia in front of the British right flank where Cornwallis had placed his fearsome British regulars.

As one who often reads about militia battles might imagine, this one lasted about as long as it takes for men to turn and run from the field.

A disaster quickly developed with militia abandoning the ground and leaving two good brigades of Continentals to stand alone and face the entire British army.

How could such a thing happen to the hero of Saratoga who owed his opportunity in that campaign to a fine reputation among the militia.

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These are the questions that history leaves us, and so often, they simply go unanswered, because we are unaware that the questions exist, or that they have any meaning in our lives today.

Resuming the narrative:

Accepted history of the Battle of Camden generally includes Alexander Hamilton’s famous quote about General Gates: “But was there ever an instance of a General running away as Gates has done from his whole army?”

“And was there ever so precipitous a flight?”

“One hundred and eighty miles in three days and a half.”

“It does admirable credit to the activity of a man at his time of life.”

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Scathing words, indeed, but are they justified?

According to the article, indeed, authors, historians, and interested readers often delight in jokes and snide comments at Gates’s behavior during the battle of Camden.

However, are these jokes and comments actually warranted or is Gates simply the target of a Hamilton political attack on General Washington’s rival for command?

Leaving off with Horatio “Granny” Gates fleeing the Battle of Camden for the moment, I find myself challenging the assertion that “Swampfox” Francis Marion, the South Carolina militia commander, was the progenitor of the modern concept of irregular warfare.

According to Wikipedia, Marion used irregular methods of warfare and is considered one of the fathers of modern guerrilla warfare and maneuver warfare, and is credited in the lineage of the United States Army Rangers and the other American military Special Forces such as the “Green Berets,” and well he should be, based on his record in the Revolutionary War.

However, the lineage of the Army Rangers starts with Robert Rogers and Roger’s Rangers, during the French and Indian Wars.

It was based on the tactics of Roger’s Rangers in the French and Indian Wars that caused the young Alexander Hamilton in 1775 in “The Farmer Refuted” to say as follows:

“Let it be remembered that there are no large plains for the two armies to meet in and decide the conquest….”

“The circumstances of our country put it in our power to evade a pitched battle.”

“It will be better policy to harass and exhaust the soldiery by frequent skirmishes and incursions than to take the open field with them, by which means they would have the full benefit of their superior regularity skills.”

“Americans are better qualified for that kind of fighting which is most adapted to this country than regular troops.”

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And Francis Marion turned out to be one of those kinds of Americans, as Wikipedia tells us:

Marion rarely committed his men to frontal warfare, but repeatedly surprised larger bodies of Loyalists or British regulars with quick surprise attacks and equally quick withdrawal from the field.

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That is known as a Fabian strategy, which is a military strategy where pitched battles and frontal assaults are avoided in favor of wearing down an opponent through a war of attrition and indirection.

While avoiding decisive battles, the side employing this strategy harasses its enemy through skirmishes to cause attrition, disrupt supply and affect morale.

Employment of this strategy implies that the side adopting this strategy believes time is on its side, but it may also be adopted when no feasible alternative strategy can be devised.

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As an aside, the Viet Cong in VEET NAM were masters at the Fabian Strategy, which used to upset the Americans in that war big time, because they didn’t think it fair that the Viet Cong would not stand and fight in the set-piece battles the Americans needed them to fight, just as the Brits needed Francis Marion to stand and fight if they were to beat him, which they couldn’t.

As to the Fabian Strategy, it derives its name from Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus, the dictator of the Roman Republic given the task of defeating the great Carthaginian general Hannibal in southern Italy during the Second Punic War (218–202 BC).

At the start of the war, Hannibal boldly crossed the Alps in wintertime and invaded Italy.

Due to Hannibal’s skill as a general, he repeatedly inflicted devastating losses on the Romans despite the numerical inferiority of his army—quickly achieving two crushing victories over the Romans at the Battle of the Trebia and the Battle of Lake Trasimene.

After these disasters the Romans appointed Fabius Maximus as dictator.

Well aware of the military superiority of the Carthaginians and the ingenuity of Hannibal, Fabius initiated a war of attrition which was designed to exploit Hannibal’s strategic vulnerabilities.

Hannibal suffered from two particular weaknesses.

First, he was commander of an invading foreign army on Italian soil, effectively cut off from the home country by the difficulty of seaborne resupply.

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That was to prove one of the weaknesses of the Brits as well during our Revolution.

Getting back to the Fabian Strategy employed in our history by Francis Marion, and Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus, the dictator of the Roman Republic given the task of defeating the great Carthaginian general Hannibal in southern Italy during the Second Punic War, as long as the Italians remained loyal to Rome, then there was no hope that Hannibal would win.

If the Romans kept on losing battles, their allies’ faith in Rome would weaken.

Therefore, Fabius calculated that the way to defeat Hannibal was to avoid engaging with him in pitched battles, so as to deprive him of victories.

He determined that Hannibal’s extended supply lines, and the cost of maintaining the Carthaginian army in the field, meant that Rome had time on its side.

Rather than fight, Fabius shadowed Hannibal’s army and avoided battle, instead sending out small detachments against Hannibal’s foraging parties, and maneuvering the Roman army in hilly terrain, so as to nullify Hannibal’s decisive superiority in cavalry.

Residents of small northern villages were encouraged to post lookouts, so that they could gather their livestock and possessions and take refuge in fortified towns.

He used interior lines to ensure that at no time could Hannibal march on Rome without abandoning his Mediterranean ports, while at the same time inflicting constant, small, debilitating defeats on the North Africans.

This, Fabius had concluded, would wear down the invaders’ endurance and discourage Rome’s allies from going over to the enemy, without having to challenge the Carthaginians to a decisive battle.

In the Southern Campaigns during the American Revolution, that same strategy was employed successfully by Major General Nathanael Greene and Francis Marion and Lieutenant Colonel Henry Lee.

As to the “Swampfox,” the British especially hated him and made repeated efforts to neutralize his force, but Marion’s intelligence gathering was excellent and that of the British was poor, due to the overwhelming Patriot loyalty of the populace in the Williamsburg area.

Colonel Banastre Tarleton was sent to capture or kill Marion in November 1780; he despaired of finding the “old swamp fox”, who eluded him by travelling along swamp paths.

It was Tarleton who gave Marion his nom de guerre when, after unsuccessfully pursuing Marion’s troops for over 26 miles through a swamp, he gave up and swore “[a]s for this damned old fox, the Devil himself could not catch him.”

Getting back to Rogers’ Rangers, they began in 1755 as a company in the provincial forces of the colony of New Hampshire in British North America, and it was the latest in a long line of New England ranger companies dating back to the 1670s.

The immediate precursor and model for the unit was Gorham’s Rangers, formed in 1744.

That is an indication of how long what can be called “irregular warfare” had been going on in this country before the arrival of Francis Marion on the scene.

What is now called “irregular warfare” at one time was called “fighting like the Indians fight,” for they were masters of the art of irregular warfare.

Rogers’ company was formed to fight in the French and Indian War (the Seven Years’ War in Canada, Britain, and Europe) in the borderlands of the colonial Northeast.

They were commanded by Captain (later Major) Robert Rogers and operated primarily in the Lake George and Lake Champlain regions of New York, which is just to the north of where I am in the world.

The unit was formed during the winter of 1755 from forces stationed at Fort William Henry, which is at the south end of Lake George in the State of New York.

The Rangers sometimes undertook raids against French towns and military emplacements, traveling on foot, in whaleboats, and even on snowshoes during winter.

Israel Putnam, known as “Old Put,” who would go on to later fame in the Revolutionary War fought as a Connecticut militia captain in conjunction with Rogers, and at one point saved his life.

The usefulness of Rogers’ company during 1756 and 1757 prompted the British to form a second ranger company, which was soon followed by more.

By early 1758, the rangers had been expanded to a corps of fourteen companies composed of between 1,200 and 1,400 men.

This included three all-Indian units, two of Stockbridge Mahicans and one of Indians from Connecticut (mainly Mohegan and Pequot).

Rogers was then promoted to major and served as commandant of the Ranger Corps.

On January 21, 1757, during the First Battle on Snowshoes, Rogers led 74 rangers to ambush the French, capturing seven prisoners near Fort Carillon at the south end of Lake Champlain.

They then were attacked by about 100 French and Canadien (French Canadian) militia and their Ottawa allies from the Ohio Country.

Rogers’ men suffered casualties and retreated without further losses, since the French lacked snowshoes and were “floundering in snow up to their knees.”

Rogers’ Rangers had maintained positions on the high ground and behind large trees.

According to Francis Parkman, Ranger casualties were 14 killed, 6 captured, and 6 wounded, the wounded returning with 48 men who were unharmed.

The French consisted of 89 Regulars and 90 Canadians and Indians; they had 37 killed and wounded.

A company of the rangers led by Noah Johnson was stationed at Fort William Henry in 1757 during the siege.

The siege ended with the surrender of the British forces and a massacre in August.

After this, the Rangers were stationed on Rogers Island near Fort Edward.

This allowed them to train and operate with more freedom than the regular forces.

On March 13, 1758 at the Second Battle on Snowshoes, Rogers’ Rangers ambushed a French-Indian column and were ambushed in turn by enemy forces.

The Rangers lost 125 men in this encounter, as well as eight men wounded, with 52 surviving.

One reference reports casualties of the Regulars, who had volunteered to accompany the Rangers, as 2 captured and 5 killed.

Of Rogers’ Rangers, 78 were captured and 47 killed and missing (of whom 19 were captured).

On July 7–8, 1758, Rogers’ Rangers took part in the Battle of Carillon.

On July 27, 1758, between Fort Edward and Half-Way Brook, 300 Indians and 200 French/Canadians under Captain St. Luc ambushed a British convoy.

The British lost 116 killed (including 16 Rangers) and 60 captured.

On August 8, 1758, near Crown Point, New York, a British force of Rangers, light infantry, and provincials was ambushed by a French-Canadian-Indian force of 450 under Captain Marin.

In this action, Major Israel Putnam was captured.

He was reportedly saved from ritual burning by the Abanaki by intervention of a French officer and a providential thunderstorm.

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In all of that time, the Americans were learning much about how the British Army fought, and how its leadership was.

It was those lessons that would aid partisans like Francis Marion in the War of Independence, which ironically was fought because the English king wanted the Americans to have to pay for the incompetence of the British that they observed in the fighting of the French and Indian War, and thus is history written.

Staying with Francis Marion for the moment, a lesson to be learned from him is how brutal a civil war the American Revolution really was.

If we today are even aware of the American Revolution, it is thought of as a war between the American colonists and the British Army.

But the reality is that it was also a war that pitted Americans versus Americans.

Wikipedia tells us that after the fall of Charleston, Marion organized a small unit, which at first consisted of between 20 and 70 men and was the only force then opposing the British Army in the state, and he showed himself to be a singularly able leader of irregular militiamen and ruthless in his terrorising of Loyalists.

After the surrender of Charleston, the British garrisoned South Carolina with help from local Tories, except for Williamsburg (the present Pee Dee), which they were never able to hold.

The British made one attempt to garrison Williamsburg at the colonial village of Willtown, but were driven out by Marion at the Battle of Black Mingo.

Cornwallis observed “Colonel Marion had so wrought the minds of the people, partly by the terror of his threats and cruelty of his punishments, and partly by the promise of plunder, that there was scarcely an inhabitant between the Santee and the Pee Dee that was not in arms against us”.

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Such is the brutality of war, especially a civil war, which pits neighbor against neighbor as was the case back then.

Maybe something the Democrats and Republicans in this country should give some thought to, today.

Getting back to “Granny” Gates at the Battle of Camden, the Journal of the April 8, 2014 American Revolution article “Winner or Runner? Gates at Camden” by Wayne Lynch, continues as follows:

Hamilton’s assertion that General Gates exhibited cowardice at Camden seems well supported considering his information came from Colonel Otho Holland Williams who acted as deputy adjutant general to Gates.

A few days after the battle, Williams told Hamilton that “General Gates used the utmost expedition in getting from the lost field to this place.”

“As this step is unaccountable to me you must expect to know the reason another time and from better authority.”

“An unfortunate Genl. usually looses the Confidence of his Army, and this is much the case with us at present.”

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That was something that also became true with “Dug-out Doug” MacArthur in Korea after the Inchon landings when MacArthur foolishly split his forces in his headlong dash to the Yalu, and it happened again in the Viet Nam war, when the whole chain of command became suspect.

But wait, there’s more, so let’s see what else the author has to say:

However, the reader shouldn’t be too quick to jump on a rash conclusion.

Colonel Williams himself also told the story quite a bit differently when writing a more detailed account of the battle later in the year.

This time, Williams focused on the cowardice of the militia and Armand’s corps instead of Gates personal behavior at the battle.

“The torrent of unarmed militia, bore away with it, Generals Gates, Caswell, and a number of others, who soon saw that all was lost.”

“General Gates, at first conceived a hope that he might rally at Clermont, a sufficient number to cover the retreat of the regulars; but, the farther they fled the more they were dispersed; and the generals soon found themselves abandoned by all but their aids. . .”

In this second version, Gates doesn’t stop trying to rally the men until abandoned.

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Ahem, ahem, ahem as we hear the sounds of a lot of throats being cleared here.

The troops, who were on foot, panicked, and in the course of doing so, carried off General Gates, who was on horseback, some one hundred and eighty miles in three days and a half.

Getting back to the narrative:

Only a few days behind the correspondence of Williams to Hamilton, Governor Thomas Jefferson of Virginia sent George Washington an official account of the battle.

Of Gates personal conduct during the battle, Jefferson indicated, “Such was the panic diffused through the whole that the utmost and unremitting exertions of the Generals Gates Stevens Caswell and others. . . to rally them. . . proved ineffectual.”

Jefferson indicated his account came from reports received from General Gates, General Stevens, and Governor Nash of North Carolina.

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So what Tommy knew of the situation in South Carolina, he got first-hand from “Granny” himself, and the “Hero of Saratoga” was not going to talk smack about himself and his conduct in that precipitous flight, was he, what with Tarleton’s British cavalry pursuing the retreating Americans for some twenty miles?

The BritishBattles.com site for the Battle of Camden tells us that Gates, the American commander, appeared to have left the battlefield with the first of the militia and ridden a considerable distance before drawing rein, leaving his subordinate commanders to fight on with the right flank.

Thus, his reputation was destroyed.

But getting back to the American Revolution article narrative, we have:

In spite of Jefferson’s official account, negative opinions of Gates’s conduct continued.

North Carolina’s attorney general said “Genl. Gates’s conduct is much censured, and I am told by his officers in general, so that I fear there are too much grounds for it.”

“The report is, that upon the Militia giving way, he immediately fled without sending any orders to the Continental troops to retreat.”

He believed the Continentals could have retreated “in good order” and saved the supply wagons.

As for the General himself, Gates sent his first report on the battle to Congress three days afterwards when he reached Hillsborough.

He says that once the “Left Wing and North Carolina Militia gave way, General Caswell and Myself, assisted by a number of Officers did all in our power to rally the broken Troops, but to no purpose; for the Enemy’s Cavalry, coming round the Left Flank of the Maryland Division, completed the Rout of the Whole of the Militia, who left the continentals alone, to oppose the Enemy’s Whole Force.”

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There he is talking about the British Dragoons under the command of Banastre Tarleton.

According to BritishBattles.com, Gates ordered his left wing of Virginia Militia to attack the opposing British units.

As the Virginians moved forward, the British launched a counter attack along the whole line.

Ill-trained and mostly without bayonets with which to conduct close quarter fighting, the Virginia Militia retreated off the field, leaving Webster’s British regiments free to turn on the flank of the American right wing, where the Continental units were putting up a stiff fight, and continued to do so.

Tarleton’s cavalry finally attacked the American right wing in the rear, causing the units to break.

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It is reported that as the troops were fleeing with Tarleton’s Dragoons in hot pursuit, that the sound of the men in the rear getting hacked to death by the sabers of the Dragoons spurred the men in front of them, to perform some prodigal feats on footback while fleeing from an enemy pursuing on horseback.

But back to the narrative:

Colonel John Christian Senf was a volunteer from Europe who served with the southern army as a consultant to Gates.

In his account of the battle Gates was in the rear of the 2nd Maryland Brigade when the Militia broke and started to run.

At that moment General Gates “rode to the militia & Endeavoured himself with the assistance of General Caswell and Aids to bring the Militia into order and fire, but all in vain, the Enemy’s Horse then came so close upon the General & Col Armand obliged to wheel.”

“The General then hop’d to bring them to order at some distance, but neither this would do, the militia was struck with such a Panick and obeyed no more command.”

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So, one hundred and eighty miles and three days and a half later, Gates finally got them to stop running.

But again, let’s see how the narrative continues:

Two of Gates’s aides left accounts of the battle of Camden that provide insight into the general’s conduct during the engagement.

First, Major Thomas Pinckney started by describing the general during the pre-battle clash in the darkness.

“I saw no indication of want of presence of mind.”

“As soon as the firing in the night commenced, he [Gates] hastened to the head of the Line, where he met Armand retreating, who urged the General to retire, as a smart firing was carried on where he was.”

“The General answered that it was his duty to be where his orders might be necessary; & he remained there until the firing grew slack & the troops were beginning to be formed.”

Pinckney went on to comment on Gates’s confident and composed manner in giving orders at the start of the battle when Pinckney himself left to give instructions to Baron DeKalb.

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As to Baron von Kalb, he was one of the European officers who went to American seeking to serve in the new American Continental Army.

Kalb was a Bavarian who served in the French army in the War of the Austrian Succession and the Seven Years War before crossing the Atlantic.

At Camden, he was said to have particularly distinguished himself before being killed.

As an aside, the American casualties in that battle were 1,000 killed and wounded and 1,000 lost as prisoners, while the British captured 7 guns and all the American stores and baggage.

But again, back to the narrative:

Also serving as an aide to General Gates, Major Charles Magill wrote a letter to his father a few days after the battle.

“Upon the first fire the whole line of militia broke and ran; the firing upon our right had begun; I was there with Genl Gates, who perceiving the militia run, rode about twenty yards in the rear of the line, to rally them, which he found impossible to do there; about half a mile further, Genl Gates and Caswell made another fruitless attempt, and a third was made at a still greater distance with no better success.”

Getting back to the beginning of the article, the question proposed is whether Gates acted with personal cowardice at Camden such as to deserve the attack on his reputation that began with Alexander Hamilton and continues to the present day.

The answer seems to be that, judging from the eyewitness accounts and Gates’s personal testimony, his behavior did not warrant any allegations of personal cowardice.

So Gates should be let off the hook, right?

Or does the controversy deserve to continue?

Well, it is really difficult to say for certain. Just before the passing of the revolutionary generation, another eyewitness account surfaced.

This time a soldier named Guilford Dudley from the North Carolina militia described himself approaching some of General Caswell’s aides during the retreat.

“I hastened up to them while they were engaged in the vain attempt to stop the torrent of flying militia, and eagerly enquired for General Gates, whom I supposed to be somewhere on the ground; the answer was, ‘he’s gone.’”

“Gone where?” I rejoined.

“He has fled and by this time is past Rugeley’s mill.”

“And where is General Caswell?”

“’He is gone, too,’ was the reply; for Gates had posted himself about the centre of the army near the reserve under General Smallwood.”

“Seeing how matters were going on our left, the hero of Saratoga being panic-struck, rode up hastily to Major General Caswell, who was near him, and in much agitation observed to him, “Sir, this is not place for us,” and without waiting for a reply, wheeled his horse and putting spurs to him, dashed up the Waxhaws road at full speed and was instantly lost sight of.”

end quotes

So what to make of all of that?

According to the author of the narrative:

When the dust settles and the General’s horse is watered and rested, I personally believe Gates did not run away at the Battle of Camden in a shocking display of personal cowardice.

Despite that belief, it would be foolish not to admit that enough evidence exists to create doubt and prevent any concrete conclusion.

In any event, even if the allegations of cowardice were nothing more than an exaggeration of circumstances made for political purposes in the struggle for command of the Continental Army, General Gates’s wonderful reputation as the hero of Saratoga lay in ruins.

end quotes

Except his reputation as the “Hero of Saratoga” was never legitimate to begin with, so perhaps that is a case of justice finally being done.

As to the sources for the narrative, the eyewitness accounts and period statements used therein can all be found in Professor Jim Piecuch’s excellent resource, “The Battle of Camden, A Documentary History” (Charleston, SC: History Press, 2006).